As Claire mentioned in the last post, this week students learned about marine mammals as part of this week’s theme: “Marine Mammal Maniacs.” At the beginning of the lesson I discuss with the students the definition of and facts about marine mammals. Then, most importantly, I relate it back to local species and we focus on marine mammals found in Boston Harbor and Massachusetts.

Today in step 2, we taught the students general information on marine mammals. First, they all tried to figure out the five things that differentiate marine mammals from other animals that live in the sea. After that, the students got to see what it would feel like to have blubber, like some of the marine mammals. Each student stuck one hand in a bag of shortening. Then they put both their covered hand and their uncovered hand in a bucket of ice water to see how their covered hand didn't get cold. This was a great activity because each student was so excited and waited patiently for their turn. They even asked to go a second and third time! After this activity we played the no teeth game with marine mammal names. For this game, everyone sits in a circle and says the name of their marine mammal twice and then the name of some one else's marine mammal twice. This game has a catch though; you can never show your teeth. The students liked this game because it was fun, challenging, and helped them learn different marine mammal species and animals.